KILLARNEY MUNICIPAL WARD STRUCTURE & COUNCIL REPRESENTATION

November 19, 2013 - OMB Hearing

November 6, 2013 - OMB Hearing

Here are some submissions from the OMB hearing provided for your reference by the presenters themselves. (We invite other presenters who wish to share their submissions to send them to info@kraa.ca so that we can include them here as well.):

Late September 2013 - Letter from Isolated Killarney Ratepayers to Key River Area residents and KRAA members

We received this update from the Isolated Killarney Ratepayers. They asked for it to be passed on to our members. It provides information on the upcoming OMB hearing regarding the Killarney Ward Structure and a request for donations to defray the associated costs:

September 2013 - Letter sent to Killarney

The KRAA board sent the following letter to the municipality (Sept 5, 2013) stating that the board feels the
status quo with respect to municipal ward representation and taxation within the Municipality of Killarney are not fair,
equitable or sustainable.

The Ad Hoc Committee presented its draft report to council. Councillor McMullen asked for the vote to be delayed since he has been ill and unable to fully digest the report. The vote was rescheduled for later in the month at which point the resolution was carried:

While not a Georgian Bay community, Kearney has many similarities to Killarney. Their ward boundary review and appeal to the OMB were analogous in many ways. Here is the OMB's final decision on that appeal from 2009:

Early Aug 2013 - Ad Hoc Committee Report

The municipality held public meetings on August 6th & 7th, 2013 to present their draft report. They propose leaving the currrent ward boundaries intact and adding one councillor to ward 2. Under this situation, each resident of ward 1 would have 3 votes for council (1 for each of 3 ward 1 councillors) and 1 vote for mayor. Each resident of ward 2 would cast 2 votes for council (one for each of 2 ward 2 councillors) and 1 vote for mayor. Ward 2 electors currently get 1 vote for council, while ward 1 electors get 3 votes each for council. Here is the draft report of the Ad Hoc Committee, as distributed at the public meetings Aug 6th & 7th, 2013:

June 2013 - Background

For any of you attending the Killarney meeting on ward structure and council representation this weekend, we wanted to collect and provide some background information. This meeting is part of the public consultation process for a nogotiated solution to an appeal to the OMB regarding the municipal structure of the Municipality of Killarney.

While the board is not pushing for one decision or another, we do want to ensure that our membership has access to the background information to make up your own minds. To gather background information on your behalf, we spoke with both Richard Seguin (who represents a group of Ward 2 cottagers calling themselves the "Ward 2 Ratepayers' Association" or W2RPA) and the Killarney town council. We provide here for your information, the results of that information gathering.

We invited Richard Seguin of the W2RPA to speak to the KRAA board. At the time of Richard's presentation, Killarney had not yet responded to the OMB appeal. They have since responded and agreed to attempt to come to a solution with the W2RPA. Here is a summary of what Richard Seguin discussed and a rough timeline of events, extracted from the minutes of the KRAA Board:

Make your voice heard

So there you have it. Please take a moment to digest the information and let the parties know your feelings on Killarney's municipal structure. That way the final decision will reflect the views of the largest number of taxpayers possible. You can attend the meeting and speak or contact both parties directly via email: